From Parenthood to This is Us, Succession to Shameless, there’s nothing better than a good family drama — particularly those that focus on the complicated dynamics between siblings. If you’re looking for another dysfunctional brood to worm their way into your heart, look no further than Adult Children. The film centers on 17-year-old Morgan (Ella Rubin), who’s struggling to write her college admission essay, as she feels like nothing exciting has ever happened to her. When she gets the chance to spend time with her older half-siblings — uptight Lisa (Betsy Brandt), rebellious Josh (Thomas Sadoski), and free-spirited Dahlia (Aya Cash) — they bring more than a little chaos into her life, helping her discover her voice and identity in the process.
It’s the newest film from director Rich Newey and scribe Annika Marks, the married duo behind Killing Eleanor, which won the award for Best Narrative Feature at the 2020 Savannah Film Festival. Adult Children is already impressing on the festival circuit as well, taking home the prize for Best International Independent Film at the Galway Film Fleadh. In addition to being a talented writer, Marks is also a gifted actor, best known for her role as Monte Porter on The Fosters.
Fanversation got the chance to speak to Marks about her new film. During the conversation, she shed light on the inspiration behind the film, the joy in exploring complicated, intergenerational relationships between women, and the biggest changes from the film’s first draft to the final product. Marks also reflected on the lasting impact of The Fosters and what she thinks Monte would be up to today.
FANVERSATION: This is an interesting take on a coming-of-age story. I was curious if you have any favorite movies in that genre that either inspired this or helped you find the tone of it.
ANNIKA MARKS: I love coming-of-age movies. I loved them when I was coming of age, so I obviously thought about stuff like all the great old John Hughes movies, which are super problematic when you look back at them, but I missed them too, you know? I thought it would be fun to try to create one without all the misogyny and racism — to create one that felt like what I would hope that a kid could find today and feel sort of seen by. I thought about Lady Bird a lot, in that it felt specific and true to her experience. You felt like the only person who could write that is somebody who grew up in Sacramento and understood that family dynamic. Not that it was completely autobiographical — just that it felt so totally lived in. That was my goal from the very beginning — to make it relatable in its specificity.
That leads really well into my next question. All the characters are so rich and layered and real feeling — which of the siblings do you feel like you relate to the most, and were they sort of your way into the story?
That’s such a good and complicated question, because this is my family dynamic. I’m the oldest of four, but I don’t want to own being all that close in character to Lisa. Maybe I’m just the hardest on myself, so I wrote her as being the most difficult character in some ways. But the truth is that there are four of us — this is our birth order. That’s the most autobiographical piece. Our birth order is girl, boy, girl, and the three of us grew up super, super tight. And then we had this much younger fourth sibling who very slowly kind of became part of the pack animals that we all were. I always wanted to write the coming-of-age story from that younger character’s perspective.
The similarities, in some ways, stop there, because there are elements of all of us that I borrowed from, and there are parts of myself that I put into all of them, and there are also things that I totally invented. I told all of my siblings not to take any of it personally or to be offended. More than anything, I was just sort of inspired by the birth order. I know a lot of families that have a very similar birth order, and so I think this is common — that there is this kind of “tack-on kid” a whole bunch of time later that grows up as one part only child and one part has five parents. What does that do to somebody? I haven’t seen a lot of movies from the perspective of a character like that.
No, me neither. I found myself relating really hard to Morgan. Especially when I was a teenager, I didn’t feel interesting enough, or I didn’t feel like I’d lived enough life like all my friends or other people in my life had. I think there’s an inherent shame in that, because it is sort of a privileged view. What was the key to making her feel both honest and sort of sympathetic? Because I really appreciated that. She’s being privileged, but she has a point, and I kind of feel for her.
Totally. It was one of the things that I felt most passionate about putting on screen, because I think the majority of us have that lived experience. You don’t know who you are, and nothing that exciting or dramatic has ever happened to you. We don’t know how to write to that, so a lot of what we write to is the Euphoria kind of teenager experience — these very soapy teenage experiences. Of course, those exist as well, but I think they’re more on the margins. They make for really great television and films — I love all that stuff — but I really wanted to write to what I think is a very relatable, less sexy experience, which is just growing up and feeling like nothing has ever happened to you. You want to stop being a kid, and the moment that you do, you realize, “Oh my God. It’s over.” I think that happens late in life to a lot of us, so I was really trying to give her that experience and not judge her for it — to let her have it. In some ways, yes, you’re right, it’s privileged. What an incredible thing. But it is very hard to appreciate that privilege when you’re inside of it, so that’s a perspective that it takes a long time to have. And I tried not to write it like that. I tried to put myself back inside her skin, because I think the feeling in it for her and for any of us who have felt that way is really lonely. The experience that she’s having, I don’t think is insignificant, even though, yes, life is about to get a lot harder.
I love that one of the key themes in this movie is sisterhood and the complicated dynamics you showcase between women of different ages. I feel like that’s also not often explored. Can you talk about showcasing those relationships in particular? It gave me the Gilmore Girls vibes that I always love and seek out in my entertainment.
I love that you just said that. It’s the thing I’m always most interested in writing about. Whether it’s the family that you’re born into or it’s found family or it’s chosen family, I think the dynamics between women — when you get close enough to be at that place where you don’t have to like each other, but you love each other, and you’re stuck together, and there is absolutely nothing that could actually sever that bond — they’re probably the bonds I’m most interested in writing. They’re complex, and they’re fraught, and I have them with both of my sisters, and my mom, and my best friends. I think women forge those relationships throughout our lives, and we can be really hard on each other, but it’s also the mark of trust, right? And vulnerability. I think the people I’ve shown the messiest parts of myself to are those women with whom I have that relationship. I love my husband to death, but it’s a different kind of bond.
I also really love that this movie offers a refreshing perspective on sex and everything that comes with that, with the abortion storyline, the STD storyline — can you talk about approaching those things in a way that feels very respectful but also still very funny and messy?
My biggest fear with trying to write those things — the STD, especially, but also abortion and even the nude modeling and affairs — is that it can feel kind of after-school special, especially when you’re dealing with a young character. I wanted to do everything I could to avoid that trap, because the truth is, yes, sex is, hopefully, overwhelmingly a wonderful experience for people, but I don’t think that that’s easily won. Our relationships with our bodies and with our sexuality and with our sexual experiences are messy, and it is hard stuff to write about. Again, I think, typically, what we write is the fantasy version of it. And at some level, yeah, every once in a while, we all get to live inside those fantasies, and that’s wonderful. I don’t think that’s the majority of our experience. It’s hard stuff to write about, because you don’t want to feel like there’s a message inside of it that suggests that sex is bad or dangerous or anything like that, right? It’s not. It’s wonderful, and it is also complicated, and it is a part of becoming an adult for most people. I guess I tried to handle it in a way that didn’t shy away from the messiness of it and also didn’t try to wrap it up too neatly. There are STDs that people have to live with forever. You have an abortion, and it lives with you forever. You have an affair, and it lives with you forever. Whether or not your spouse ever finds out, it doesn’t matter. There are experiences that become part of the fabric of who you are. I tried to focus on it more like that — that these are experiences that help make us who we are. Not good, not bad — they’re just experiences.
I really like that perspective, and I also really enjoy the theme of having the same parent but having wildly different experiences with them. That’s something that happens a lot that isn’t really talked about either. Can you talk about exploring that theme?
I wanted it, obviously, to feel like a coming-of-age story from this 17-year-old’s perspective, but I also saw it as a coming-of-age story about a whole lot of people at a whole lot of different points in their lives. And to me, Mimi, who’s the mom character, she was a kid when she was raising her first kids, and I can see it so clearly as a mom now. I remember how I felt about my parents as a kid. I thought they had everything figured out. And sometimes, the thought of that will keep me up all night long. Now that I have my own kids, the idea that they look at me and feel that way is terrifying. I wanted to write to that, too — the fact that we are all always coming of age. It never stops. There isn’t a point on the horizon that you get to and you say, “Okay, check. I am now an adult and responsible.” It is an evolution, and I think it’s one of the harder things about growing up. If you’re lucky enough to have parents who do make you feel that secure as a kid, at some point, you’re gonna learn that they’re just people on their own journey. I wanted to write to that in a way that also, again, didn’t make it feel good or bad. It’s just a portal you have to go through on your way to adulthood.
I know that screenplays often go through quite a few drafts before landing on what is on the screen. What’s the biggest change between the first draft of the script and the finished product that we see?
Oh, man. A lot. A lot changed. In my very, very, very first draft of this — it was a long time ago, so I’m having to think back — nothing upsetting happened to Morgan. She was really much more of a passive observer. The first huge change that I went through was realizing, “Oh, something has to happen to Morgan that forces her into this adulthood that she thinks she wants before she’s actually ready to handle it.” That changed everything — realizing that — and it meant everybody else’s journeys also had to adjust to make room for hers. So that was a big thing.
The script went through a lot of changes because Kevin Beggs, who’s the head of TV at Lionsgate, read the feature and wanted me to adapt it as a TV show. So I wrote a pilot, and we pitched it, and we ultimately didn’t set it up, but it was a great experience. I learned a lot. It looked very different as a TV pilot. It actually focused on Mimi, and it was equally about the kids as an ensemble. It was much more like a Brothers & Sisters type ensemble family show. We couldn’t set it up at the time — people weren’t really looking for it — and I always maintained the rights to the feature. Going back to the feature after going through that journey with it, a bunch of things adjusted. Not that I took from the TV show to put into it, but I learned a lot about the characters in that process. That was exciting, to go back to the feature and say, “Okay, what do I love about this? What do I think I can get rid of now because I’m no longer attached to it the way I was two years ago?”
And then the other huge thing that shifted in the making of it — because my husband directed it again, so we worked together very closely, and he did not edit this. He edited our first film, but he did not edit this. He started as an editor, so he’s very involved in that process. We had shot a scene that opened the film that was a flashback, so you met little Morgan. It was a Hanukkah scene, and you saw her realize that all of her siblings had this chickenpox scar and that she was never going to get chickenpox because she’d been inoculated, and you realize how upset she was as a seven-year-old.
It was a very fun opening, and the way that we did it, we made them all improvise the story of Hanukkah. It was a total mess. It was so fun. It was, in some ways, the best scene of the movie, but it was unlike anything else in the film. It started the film off, and it was wonderful, but it didn’t totally center us on Morgan, and it felt like — even though you’re starting three minutes later on Morgan in close up — you were always like, “But I want to get back to that really fun family dynamic,” and you never really do because the family is never all together that way again. So ultimately, we had to lose that in the edit. It was a very big, sad thing to lose. The cast was also sad, because they all loved the scene. It was hard, but it was definitely the right thing. How you open a movie, it changes the way the audience watches every other moment of it, and this one really did need to open on Morgan.
I know you’re also a producer on this project, and, like you said, your husband is the director. How did those two things influence the way that you collaborate on and help shape the project?
Rich and I work really closely together. He is very generous in letting me be in every conversation. He doesn’t ever really keep me out except for the very, very first cut of something. He doesn’t really want me to see anything until I watch it for the first time, which is great, because you never get to watch it for the first time again — that’s the cleanest take you ever have. But we’re really involved. The fact that we’ve managed to stay married after making two features together is a small miracle. I don’t always think it’s the healthiest thing for our marriage, but we have a really close working relationship. I don’t ever let anybody else read a single draft of anything before Rich reads it, and I watch every cut of anything that he makes. So yeah, we worked together very closely.
We had two other producing partners on this. Angie Gaffney, who we produced Killing Eleanor with, is a phenomenal producer. She is the lead producer, and thank god we all kind of let her run a whole lot of things. We’re too weighted by one thing, whether it’s the writing or the directing or the acting, so she’s the key to holding it all together.
And then our other producing partner on this is Thomas Sadoski, who plays Josh. I wrote that role for him, and he had been attached from the very beginning. He is the reason that Kevin Beggs ever read it at Lionsgate. He was such a champion of this project, and he was an incredibly involved producer. He’s not just a producer in name or only an actor thing — he was and continues to be an incredible day-to-day producer on the film. So we had a very passionate group of four people. Making a movie is hard. You see each other at your best and at your worst. In the end, I’d work with Rich, Angie, and Tommy anytime, anywhere. I trust them completely. I think that’s the key. You need to really trust the people you’re in the trenches with.
The weed scene is one of my favorites, but is there a scene in particular that you were most excited to see brought to life?
The image of the four of them lying in the grass when they’re high at night was in my mind forever. That’s the linchpin of the thing. It was the first image I had before I even started writing — these four siblings lying in the grass. Why are they in the grass? What are they doing? It was the thing that got me excited when I was pitching the project for the first time, back before COVID. I had found an image of four siblings lying in the grass like that, or four people who I decided were siblings. I was on set that day, and seeing them, there was so much emotion for me. It was an amazing moment. It’s the most incredible thing about writing, that you have these things that only live in your head for a really long time, and then they come to life, and they get better because the people who bring them to life are so talented. That’s always gonna feel like the movie to me — that image. But I agree with you. I think my favorite scene in the movie is the scene where they’re all getting high. That whole sequence, them finding the weed and smoking it. In some ways, the closest they ever are is actually in the middle of the film.
I like what you said about how actors will make things better, because I totally agree. I think that’s one of the most rewarding things, and I think it’s really cool when an actor takes something and interprets it or does something with it that you had never thought of to make you see the character or the moment in a new way. I’m curious if there was a moment where any of the actors did that.
They all did. They were all so brilliant. This cast was so brilliant. They were all incredible, and there are moments like that of all of them. The first thing that comes to mind, though, is that Morgan, in my mind, needed to feel, in every way, very ordinary. That was part of her complex about herself — that she was unremarkable and that people wouldn’t remember her if they met her. I never write about what somebody looks like. I think people can look however they look, right? I’m always writing about who they are. But in my mind, Morgan had always felt really kind of forgettable, so I thought that’s what we were looking for — the most average-looking girl. We read at least 100 girls for that role. Tommy, Betsy, and Aya were in from the very beginning. They are so brilliant, and to find a kid that could play 17 and go toe-to-toe with them was really scary. Also, the movie kind of hangs on her shoulders, and that was terrifying.
So we read, like, 100 girls, and Ella read, and we were watching her tape and thinking, “This is so sad, because she is brilliant, but she’s way too beautiful. There’s no way that this can be Morgan, because she’s a movie star. She looks like a movie star. There’s no way that this is the girl. That makes me so, so sad.” And then, I just could not stop thinking about her. And everybody else was like, “Ella, right?” And I was like, “That is so not what I had in my head.” And yet she made everything better. We’d seen so many actresses read, and so many of them were wonderful, right? But there was something about her. She just was Morgan. So I had to get out of the way and realize she had changed it. She knew more about Morgan than I did, and it was hers. This process of writing and creating and staying involved as a producer that you have to get really good at is knowing when to let go. That’s the smartest letting-go move I’ve ever made, knowing that it was Ella’s role.
I think it adds such an interesting thing, too, because she feels so ordinary, but an outsider wouldn’t think that. That adds such a fun perspective to the movie, where you could be the most beautiful person in the world and still feel like you’re bland.
I totally agree. I’m watching it now, and it’s like, “Oh my god, it’s a million times better because anybody looking at her sees her so differently than she sees herself.” I just couldn’t think of that until she showed it to me.
A key part of it is that she’s writing this essay, and she’s trying to think of three words to describe herself. What words would you use to describe yourself?
Oh god. Probably “to be determined.” I still feel like such a work in progress. Maybe “work in progress.”
It’s such a hard question, and they really kill you on those essays. How would you answer something like that?
I know — it’s so silly.
I do want to ask just a little bit about The Fosters. It’s been over 10 years since it first aired, which is crazy. Looking back, what is the most memorable part of that experience, and why do you think it has had this lasting impact?
That was such an incredible thing to become part of. In some ways, I think I’m probably writing today because of The Fosters for a couple of reasons. One is because of Joanna and Peter and Bradley — being part of a show where two of the three creators were actors who had found their way into writing and producing and creating. And they were so generous with that space. When they learned that I wanted to write, they were all so encouraging. They modeled something for me that I got to watch up close for a long time, and they probably had more impact on me than they’ll ever realize. Personally, it changed my life in a way I really wouldn’t have known to be excited about at the time.
But then, on a much bigger scale, I think being part of a show that means that much to people was incredible then and continues to be incredible. I also love that the show exists. It’s like this time capsule, because you realize that the show — for all the right reasons — wouldn’t have the same impact today, because it was so ahead of its time. That’s ridiculous that it needed to be, and yet it was. They started doing things, and they changed everything, and I think that’s an incredible thing to have gotten to be part of. When I booked the role, I didn’t know what a big part of the experience that was going to be. It’s one of the things I’m proudest of — that I got to be part of something that means that much to people. We have a friend, a family friend, who’s Kenyan and is gay and is living in the States, and when I met her, she was like, “The Fosters was such a big part of my life.” The reach is huge. The impact is huge. It’s an incredibly beautiful thing to be part of.
What do you think Monte is up to nowadays?
I kind of hope she’s single. I think she needed to spend some time by herself, and I hope she’s had some alone time. I’m not sure that she needed to be a principal. I feel like it stressed her out. I hope she’s, like, taken up surfing and spent some time traveling. Maybe she’s in a more self-accepting place.
We’ll check in on her eventually, hopefully.
That’d be great! I would love to know where she is.
Finally, what is next for you that people can look forward to? Is there anything in the works after this that people can get excited about?
Yeah, I’ve been mostly writing for the last eight years or so. I’m so lucky that I have young children, and I’ve gotten into writing at this time. It’s fantastic for my schedule — it’s a different kind of control that you have over your time when you’re a writer. It’s been wonderful. I have a third feature called The Tipping Point that got chosen by the NRDC for the Climate Storytelling Fellowship, so I’m in the middle of working on that right now. Hopefully, that film will be the next one that gets made. I just finished a spec that I’m hoping to take out before the end of the year — that’s a really fun comedy. And I’ve been writing TV a lot. I’ve got a couple of things in development with a couple of production companies and studios, and I’m hoping one of them hits at some point and people actually get to see it. But I feel very lucky. It’s a very hard time in the business, and I’ve managed to hold on. I feel very lucky about that.
See if Adult Children is playing at a film festival near you here.
— Taylor Gates